SPEEDWAY by Alan Goodman

SPEEDWAY 2017

Ex-Bees skipper Chris Harris helped the Great Britain team to a good victory in Event One of this year’s World Team Cup at King’s Lynn.

It was always going to be a two-horse race for the winner’s position and a place in Saturday’s Final in Poland.

Britain’s main opponents were Australia with the USA, led by another ex-Bee, Ricky Wells fighting the Czech Republic for a place in Friday’s last ditch qualifier.

Britain made a good start, building up a good lead in the opening races. Australia gradually pulled back into contention and when trailing by six points used the Joker rule to good advantage in heat eleven to reduce the lead to just three. This made the battle for first more interesting but in the end Britain ran out winners 53 to the Aussies 44, with the young USA team causing a slight upset by coming third with 15 points to the Czech’s 13.

The talk before the meeting was the Britain and ex-Bees team manager Alun Rossiter leaving out Bees skipper Danny King. His selection however, proved justified with Craig Cook scoring 14 and the other three 13 apiece.

Britain now goes into Saturday’s Final against seeded opponents Poland and two other qualifiers and with the Scandanavian Event Two much more competitive, it will be a difficult task.